How much fabric do you need?

How upholstery fabric is sold

Two numbers describe a roll of fabric: how wide it is, and how much length you buy. You choose the length; the width is fixed by the roll.

Most proper upholstery fabric is woven 137 cm (54 inches) wide — that figure is so standard that the rule-of-thumb charts every upholsterer uses are all worked out for it. Some fabrics come 130 cm or 140 cm; dress and quilting cottons are often only 112 cm (44″) wide, which means more length and more seams for the same job. Always check the width before you trust a yardage figure, because a number worked out for 137 cm fabric is wrong for 112 cm fabric.

Length is sold by the metre in the UK and most of the world, and by the yard in the United States and in a lot of older British patterns and pricing. They're close but not equal: a metre is about 1.09 yards, so a yard is a little short of a metre. The calculator above shows both at once so you never have to convert in your head — but the short version is: if a chart says yards and your shop sells metres, the metre figure is very slightly smaller for the same length.

Rule-of-thumb yardages

These are the figures upholsterers carry in their heads for a quick quote. They assume 137 cm (54″) plain fabric and include normal cutting waste. A patterned fabric needs more — see below.

How to measure your own piece

The rule-of-thumb chart is fine for a quick budget, but every chair is a little different. When you want a real figure, you measure the piece panel by panel. The method is simple, and it's the same one the calculator uses.

An upholstered piece is just a set of fabric panels — flat rectangles, each covering one part of the frame. Picture the chair coming apart into its covers and you have your list: the inside back, the outside back, the seat, an inside and outside arm on each side, the arm fronts (facings or scrolls), a front border, and the cushions (a top, a bottom and a boxing strip each).

1. Measure each panel at its widest and tallest point, over the existing cover, with a cloth tape. Always measure the fattest part — fabric has to reach right across the crown of a seat or the curve of an arm.
2. Add a tacking allowance of about 5 cm (2″) all the way round each panel, so you have something to grip, pull and tack. The calculator adds this for you.
3. Count how many of each panel you need — two inside arms, two outside arms, two arm facings, and so on.
4. Lay the panels out across the width of the roll. Panels sit side by side until they fill the 137 cm width, then the next one starts a new "drop" further down the roll. Add up the length of all the drops and that's your total. (The calculator does this packing step automatically.)

The five things that change the number

1. Pattern repeat

A plain fabric can be cut anywhere. A patterned one has to be cut so the motif lands in the same place on every panel, and so motifs match across seams. That means waste between each piece — up to a full repeat per panel. A small repeat adds perhaps a tenth; a big, bold repeat can add a third or more. Set the repeat in the calculator and it allows for it.

2. Fabric width

Narrow fabric needs more length. A job that takes 6 m of 137 cm fabric might take 7 m or more of 112 cm cotton, because fewer panels fit across the width. The calculator adjusts automatically when you change the width.

3. Railroading

Running fabric sideways across the roll lets a wide panel — a sofa back, say — be cut in one piece with no seam. It can save a lot of fabric, but only works for plain fabric or patterns designed to run that way. Many fabrics are now woven specifically to be railroaded.

4. Buttoning and pleating

Deep buttoning pulls fabric down into the stuffing, and every button needs extra cloth to feed that fold. A deep-buttoned panel can need 25–50% more fabric than a flat one of the same size. Pleated arms and gathered fronts are the same story. Add a generous margin for any of this.

5. A safety margin

Even with careful measuring, buy a little extra. Fabric is sold in dye-lots, and a second piece bought later may not match the first. The cost of an extra half-metre is nothing next to the cost of running out — so when the figure lands between two amounts, always round up.

A worked example

Say you're recovering a standard club armchair in a plain fabric. Panel by panel — inside back, outside back, seat, two inside arms, two outside arms, two arm facings, a front border and a seat cushion (top, bottom and boxing) — and laid out across 137 cm fabric, it comes to a touch under 6 metres. Round up and you'd buy 6 m (or about 6½ yd). Now switch the same chair to a fabric with a 30 cm repeat and the figure climbs to roughly 7 metres, because each panel has to be positioned on the pattern. That single change — plain to patterned — is the difference between 6 and 7 metres, which is exactly why it pays to settle on your fabric before you measure.